The Girl from Rawblood

Some families describe their histories as haunted due to wars, famines, and other traumas. But in Catriona Ward’s The Girl from Rawblood, the family is genuinely haunted. The Villarcas of Rawblood have all died young and horribly after getting married. Consequently, Iris, the youngest and last of the Villarcas, has grown up isolated to protect her from the family curse. Even though she follows her father’s rules (most of the time), the curse might be coming for her anyway.

The first part of The Girl from Rawblood switches back and forth between Iris in the early twentieth century and Charles Danforth in the 1880s. It isn’t clear what the connection between the two is until much later, except that they are both tied up with the terrible, shocking history of the Villarcas of Rawblood. (We learn that history in bits and pieces until the second half of the book.) We see Iris’s father, Alonso try to teach her to control her emotions, impressing upon her the danger of becoming friends with outsiders. Meanwhile, Charles works with a much younger Alonso to try and find a cure for the curse, which Alonso suspects might be a kind of congenital madness. It isn’t until much later that we learn of the family ghost, a bald woman with terrible scars who scares people to death, always referred to as her (with italics).

In the second half of the book, Ward takes us back into the family history and the deaths of previous Villarcas and Hopewells (the original owners of Rawblood). If each new generation wasn’t so very stubborn about how they will be the one to break the curse and find happiness in love, marriage, and family, they would have died out long ago. And yet, every time, they try to find a way to avoid her. The first half of the book might lead you to believe that Alonso is right and that there is a hereditary mental illness in the family. The second half, however, makes it clear that the Villarcas are genuinely haunted.

I admit that I found the first half of The Girl from Rawblood a little slow. Iris’ chapters are written in the present tense, which bothered me, and I found Charles a bit priggish. (Also, the vivisection scenes were very hard for me to get through.) But the second half was captivating. The Villarcas go through tragedy after tragedy, but they still keep falling in love and trying to thwart fate. This book is clearly a horror story, and yet, there’s a note of hope and redemption underneath all the of the violence. I also loved the spectacular conclusion of this book. It was worth it for me to keep reading just to get to that ending.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley for review consideration. It will be released 7 March 2017.

A thank you to Catriona Ward, Sourcebooks, and Netgalley for sharing this copy for an unbiased review.

Ward has an impressive grasp of the metaphor and leads the reader to conclusions instead of blatantly stating what's happened. I appreciate both of those methods.

Ultimately The Girl from Rawblood is a book about love and who belongs together, not just a ghost story. Relegating it to that box would sell it short. It's written like a diamond, facet upon facet, one section shining into the next then another five away. All coming together at the end to produce a lovely gem of a tale. I'd say the last 90% of the book was the most fascinating for me, as that was the Big Reveal. Kudos to Ward for writing what I think should be a popular book club selection this year. It inspires discussion and debate, and comes with a reader's guide, which is always helpful.

Side note: I want to read The Waking of Angantyr! The bedtime story sounds amazing!

Every so often, I read a book that is so good, when I've finished it, I find myself wanting to read another book just like it. The experience was that good.

"The Girl From Rawblood" is one of those books.

It's a gothic novel that gave me a Mary Shelley's Frankenstein-like vibe. And please note: it is dark and depressing, just like that novel. If you're looking for happy endings, please find another book.

But I seriously couldn't put this book down once I got into it. I devoured it.

The novel begins with Iris, a young girl whose father doesn't allow her to venture outside the confines of their home, Rawblood, or have friends, since their family is haunted by a strange curse which will kill them if they invite love into their lives. The pair are the last of the Villarca line and the story then begins to tell, from their own perspectives, the story of their family and how the curse, known as "Her," came to be.

As I've said, this novel is very much in the style of classic gothic novels and is a dark, sad tale which will rip your heart out in places. But it's also a tale of the power of love and how much it pervades our lives, no matter how much we try to push it away. Love reaches all of the characters, no matter how hard they push it away.

I think some of the lower reviews were from people expecting a modern-day style novel, and it's not. It's very much classical literature-style. You have to go in knowing that. Also, FYI: This book does contain some scenes where animals are harmed. Not anything over-the-top, but it may give you pause.

I do have some questions about the ending, since it's very symbolic and tries to tie together all the loose ends of the novel, but I can deal with that - most is explained and revealed, there's just some details I need to confirm. Hopefully, once the book comes out I'll be able to read some fan theories.

Overall, I'm really still processing this book. It will stay with you long after you've finished reading it. If you're a gothic horror/romance fan, buy this book, yesterday. I loved it.

I will definitely be buying more from Catriona Ward.

The Girl from Rawblood is an atmospheric read that is creepy at times. As such, it took me longer than usual to get through because I started it just as my husband went away to a conference for a week, and it was not a good choice for late at night when I was alone in the house! Now that I have finally finished it, I can say that I enjoyed it. With its twisting narrative and jumping time periods, it is a book upon which you need to concentrate to keep up with what's happening and who is related to whom, and how. On the whole, I liked this about it, though, especially as the story progressed and further, deeper connections sprung up between the characters. I didn't see the ending coming until fairly late in the narrative, and when Ward did reveal the truth, it gave the book a satisfying conclusion. This is not a read for the fainthearted, but if you enjoy some gore and shocks, and don't mind taking the time to appreciate the slower, winding prose style, you'll doubtless appreciate this tale.

Catriona Ward's The Girl from Rawblood almost defies description as it crosses generations, characters, and locations. It is part haunted house story, part social commentary, part family tragedy. It is all of those things and somehow none of those things. There is plenty to disturb and plenty to sadden. There is even more to make you question your sanity and wonder what is happening. The general sense of unease crystallizes into a sense of horror as the pieces fall into place, leaving you to marvel at what Ms. Ward accomplishes.

Iris Villarca is only one of the characters at the heart of this tragic and compelling story. The story starts and ends with her, but along the way we touch on the lives of her ancestors and how they are each affected by the family curse. Just what the curse is remains nebulous, as are the reasons why the family is cursed, but that does not stop the terror from filling you when "she" makes an appearance. Much as one builds a lasagna, each member of the Villarca family adds another layer of understanding to the mystery of the curse and to Iris' predicament. Theirs is not a happy story by any means, but there are snippets of brightness and love that ease some of the tension and reminds you that to give up on love means to give up on life.

The Girl from Rawblood is not a horror story in the Stephen King sense of the word. There exists violence and danger throughout the story; there is gore as well. Yet, it is not as assertive as King's novels. With few exceptions, the violence is subtle, mostly off-screen and referenced in passing. The gore is less subtle, and there are some scenes involving medical testing that will turn your stomach. However, the sense of overriding fear that some of King's novels cause remains lacking in Ms. Ward's. One can still consider the novel horrifying but not for the reasons one expects when considering a horror novel.

Given all of that, and for many more reasons, it is no wonder that The Girl from Rawblood won the 2016 prize for Best Horror Novel at the British Fantasy Awards last year. Ms. Ward takes the traditional ghost story and turns it on its head with her cross-generational family curse. She also infuses the story with more concrete examples of horror - the kind humans can instill on each other. Combined together it is a novel that entices and horrifies readers, all the while allowing them to marvel at the genius twist on the genre Ms. Ward uses to create a novel that is similar to so many other novels but in the end so completely different from them all.

"She comes in the night. Sometimes, in mist or fog. A woman, or once a woman. White, starved...Have you not felt her? Waiting in the shadowed places outside the lamplight, at the bottom of wells. Behind you, in long dark corridors..."

I just explained this book from start to finish in full spoiler-ridden glory to my fiancé. He looked at me afterward, slightly aghast, and said, "The hell did you just read?" Then he started laughing. "How the hell do you review that?"

I'm still struggling to answer both.

This book is a gloriously gothic horror story, reminiscent, at times of the great masters who birthed the genre. The fact that this is the author's debut is slightly mind-blowing. This reads like something you'd expect from a person in their mid-60s, who has been writing for thirty plus years, honing their craft, building their vocabulary, perfecting their prose.

The story itself is unlike anything I've ever read. Set in the early 20th century, on the moors of southwest England, it opens with a young girl named Iris, and her friend Tom. Her only friend. The rest of the locals fear and revile her and her father, who is her sole surviving relative, for they are descendants of not one, but two cursed bloodlines - the Hopewells, and the Villarcas - and hail from an ancestral home with an ominous name: Rawblood.

"Rawblood. Home. It sounds like a battle, like grief, but it's a gentle name. "Raw" from scraw, which means "flowing", for the Dart River that runs nearby. "Blood" from bont, a bridge. Old words. The house by the bridge with the flowing water.

It's a struggle, in the beginning, to understand the superstitious locals, for Iris is but a child, and sees the world through a child's eyes. It's only as she begins to grow that she notices that sometimes the shadows in her house don't move the way you expect them to. That she begins to realize there is more to her father's frenzied protectiveness. At first, she thinks it's protectiveness of her, but as she blossoms into a teenager, she begins to fear that in reality, he's protecting everyone else from...them.

I mentioned above that she's the heir apparent to two cursed bloodlines. Most of her ancestors died young and tragically. Those who survived into old age died alone in their beds with only their cold, shriveled hearts for company, for, you see, the killing curse is triggered by romantic love.

The moment one begins to fall, she appears out of the darkness. And she takes them. Iris' father tells her the tales the day he begins to fear that her friendship with Tom is blossoming into something more. He tells her of all those in their family who have succumbed to the curse. Some see her and go mad, and kill their loved ones before she can. Others simply die of fright. Still more claw their own eyes out to rid themselves of the sight of her.

Iris, in a fit of supreme arrogance, thinks that he is manipulating her. That he's afraid that she'll leave him, and that's why he's been so overprotective. If he cages her in, she can never fly away.

If only that were the case. She learns the error of her arrogance the hard way. Violently and tragically. But this is only the beginning of her story, and to understand how it all ends, we must first go backward, through time, to how it all began.

This book is told in alternating timelines. It's not often that this brand of storytelling works for me, but Ward pulls it off beautifully, weaving together the past and present in such a way as to keep you fully engaged with every narrator. Of which, there are many.

A bit of advice: don't get frustrated when you switch from one storyline to the next. Slow down. Don't rush. Pay attention to each. For every single chapter in here is important. Every character and every scene playing a pivotal role in the tragedy of this family. This book is a slow burn, a longer read, so I suggest saving it for a time when you feel you have plenty of attention and patience to devote to it.

I do want to say that this is so much more than a ghost story. It's a tale of life and love and heartache and grief and death and survival. Every chapter builds upon the one that came before it, every character feels raw and real.

I'm not sure if everyone will love it as much as I did, because it's just so...different that I almost hesitate to suggest it. I guess I'll say that if passages like the following give you a prosegasm:

"Sometimes, I walk through it in my dreams - the interior of my heart. It is like a black land, where black flags hang in tatters and venomous plants grow in sickly clumps and serpents writhe...A deadly night garden, my heart."

Or if you ever thought, "Hey, wouldn't it be neat if The Historian, The Thirteenth Tale, Dracula, and Bleak House got together and had a love child?" then this book is for you.

The Girl from Rawblood sounded like a very interesting read. A goth story with ghosts, haunted houses, family secrets . The Rawblood family has a hereditary rare disease that goes back from generation to generation threatening to kill the last remains members of this lineage.
I really wanted to like this book, but I just could not get into it. The storyline moves back in forth in time which makes for a very confusing read. I spent more time than I liked trying to figure out "where I was " in the timeline. By the middle of the book I was more annoyed and drudging through the book half heartedly .

This novel can be a bit confusing because it is not a linear story. Each chapter is written by a different person who has been affected by "her". In order to read this novel, you need to pay careful attention or else you will find yourself utterly lost. That being said, I found the story to be highly engrossing. I enjoyed putting the pieces together and seeing how the Villarca curse has affected those in the Villarca family line, as well as those who aren't directly a part of this family. I liked the fact that the story didn't flow smoothly; I enjoyed the jarring effect of being caught up in one story just to be yanked out and put into another. It made the reading of this novel so much fun! I also quite liked the way the author resolved the issue of the curse and how she ended everything. This novel definitely gave me chills here and there but it made me think more than anything. Overall, a really interesting ghost story that I enjoyed very much!